ABSTRACT
Correspondence to Professor Amit Nigam, Cass Business School, City, University of London, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK;Amit.Nigam.1@city.ac.uk Martin Luther King Jr, in the midst of the civil rights movement, referred to the ongoing protests by noting, ‘It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment’.1 Broaden the context to the entire world as it faces and responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, and his words resonate today. On 27th February 2020, the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Systems Sciences and Engineering reported 82 700 cases worldwide, most of these in China;just over 1 month later, on 1st April 2020, that number was exceeded by cases in Italy (105 792), Spain (102 136) and the USA (189 633), while the global figure stood at 873 767.2 On the same date and time, deaths worldwide numbered 43 288, with the Imperial College COVID-19 response team estimating that unmitigated, the pandemic could lead to 40 million deaths globally this year.3 Allied to the health impact there is the socio-economic one. On 25 March 2020 it was estimated that over a quarter of the world’s population were already living in some form of ‘lockdown’ with restricted mobility and civil liberties.5 The physical and mental health impacts of prolonged domestic confinement, limitations on activity and exercise, loss of income and employment, to say nothing of diversion of existing health resources to counter COVID-19, are as yet unquantified but will be significant.